As an automatic piano chimed a wedding march, new mother Wang Dan walked down a red carpet toward a hospital room called the “White House,” minutes after giving birth in a candlelit water pool.
The suite is adorned with an enormous rococo-style sofa and a Mona Lisa portrait, and 28-year-old Wang, who gave birth to a son, said: “I wanted to stay in the White House because it’s large and well decorated.”
However, Wang’s presidential-themed chamber at Beijing’s Antai Hospital — an expensive private facility aimed at the capital’s wealthy middle class — was not the only unusual thing about the birth of her first child. In a country where most urban professionals choose Caesarean sections, she stands out for choosing to give birth naturally.
Photo: AFP
The proportion of Chinese mothers choosing Caesareans more than doubled in less than a decade, from about 20 percent in 2001 to above 46 percent in 2008 — and approaching two-thirds in cities, according to the latest WHO figures.
Across Asia, Caesarean rates have reached “epidemic levels,” the WHO said in a 2010 report.
Experts say that Caesareans are necessary in many cases when a mother or baby has a health condition that would make a natural birth risky, but that the risks of elective operations are often greater than the benefits.
China’s Caesarean rate is “definitely too high,” said Shenlang Tang, a researcher into Chinese healthcare at Duke University in the US, adding that “the key factor is hospital financing.”
China has made huge strides in maternity care over the past decades, slashing its newborn death rate by almost two-thirds since the mid-1990s, largely by promoting hospital births.
However, Chinese hospitals receive little government funding and generate almost half their incomes from selling operations such as Caesareans, with other revenues coming mainly from diagnostic tests and medicines.
“The price of Caesarean section-based delivery can be up to three or four times that of a natural birth ... which helps the hospital generate more revenue,” Tang said.
China’s “one child” family planning policy also plays a role, as parents with more money to invest in their only childbirth are more likely to splash out on the procedure, which they see as safer, Tang said.
“There are a lot of perceptions that if you have natural delivery, it will affect your sex life,” he said.
Some local governments in China have launched campaigns to promote natural birth, but there is no clear central government policy on the issue, he said.
In an attempt to encourage women to choose natural birth, Antai Hospital offers water births and teaches expectant mothers hypnosis techniques to deal with the pain of labor.
It also charges just as much for natural childbirth as it does for a Caesarean, removing incentives for doctors to promote the operation.
“Our major problem is that pregnant women in China are very scared of pain,” Antai Hospital director Chen Fenglin said.
“We found that even water birth couldn’t reduce our patients’ fear, which is why we introduced hypnosis,” he said.
A red carpet runs from Antai’s delivery room toward a series of recovery suites, including the Western-themed White House, a room aimed at Muslims called the “Islamabad Palace” and a chamber inspired by Mongolian leader Genghis Khan.
“Parents hope that their child can grow up to be an emperor or princess, or a president, so the rooms give the parents a beautiful dream,” said Chen, who added that his hospital has carried out more than 2,000 water births.
An automated piano outside the delivery room plays a wedding march when mothers walk past with their newborn baby.
“We want to express that a birth is as joyful as a wedding,” Chen said.
Its innovations have proved a hit with mothers such as Wang Dan, who are willing to pay its hefty fees.
“I felt really happy when the wedding music played, because some people are in a lot of pain after giving birth, but I was simply excited,” she said, adding that she did not use an anesthetic.
However, downstairs from Antai’s water-birth suite, doctors are still busy performing Caesareans.
Chen doubts that China’s Caesarean rate will fall significantly, because of the financial incentives hospitals face.
“No matter how much you promote natural birth, it’s ultimately a matter of economics,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in